ABSTRACT
Urban civilisation is pervaded by that peculiar combination of creativity and control, of expression and repression, of tension and release, whose outward manifestation has been the historic city. The earliest surviving burgh charter is that of Ayr, dated 1205; the records of the Great Seal survive only from 1315; the earliest extant Exchequer Roll is dated 1326; and, apart from a few early rolls dating from 1292, the official records of Parliament begin in 1466. As far as Scotland is concerned the town was such a well-tried feature throughout the Anglo-Norman world that it would have been unthinkable not to erect them within the areas of royal control. In eastern Scotland the castle was the symbol of strong royal control. In the Tweed valley sheriffs controlled the shires of Berwick, Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, each shire with a castle at its centre and a burgh attached.
